Geocaching in Shropshire and beyond…

Wacky Races series, Mushroom Man series, various around Chorley and a FTF!

On Saturday, we decided to go for last week’s Plan A, which was a trip to the Chorley area to clear up the newer caches there. As Isaac was with me, we changed this slightly and opted to start on the Wacky Races series near Skelmersdale as they are in a great location and have been getting good logs.

The first cache of the day was a puzzle cache, which was nice and easy to solve. To find the box, you have to go to a location and then pace out distances until you get to GZ and then use your cacher’s eye. All nice and easy and no problems at all.

Next, we started on the Wacky Races series. Try as I might, I could not work out a circular route round them all, so opted to pick some off from nearby roads individually and then to do the final half of them as a longer, circular walk. This ended up working out really well.

We’ve not been caching in this part of the country for ages, but remember it being lovely, with gentle hills and some great views over the surrounding areas. It was just as we remembered and we really enjoyed our walk around picking up the caches in the series.

Along the way we picked up an older cache, The Wood & The Wire, which we’ve nearly stopped for several times in the past, but never had quite enough time. Very satisfying to finally bag it on our walk around the other caches today.

The other highlight of the walk was a trip up to Ashurst Beacon, which is a lovely old monument on top of probably the highest hill in the area. The views from the top were panoramic and with the great weather today, we could see for absolutely miles. I pointed out all sorts of views to Isaac, including Blackpool Tower and the South Lake District hills.

We soon arrived in Euxon and picked off a couple of easy drive-by’s before relocating to the north end of the Mushroom Man series, for a nice circular walk. Not much to report here apart from lovely countryside and some nice easy finds (apart from the last one in the series which took us a bit longer to find).

After we’d finished the series, we decided to head off toward Chorley and then Horwich, with the ultimate intention of a try for a FTF just north of Bolton.

More quick cache and dashes here, with a one in a nice nature area by a hospital and a re-visit to a place we’d been to for a cache before, to bag the resurrected (and re-listed) cache. The cache owner had given up caching, but the cache was still in place, although it was archived for some reason. Another cacher had decided to create a new listing for it, so people could come back and find it.

Next, Isaac guided us down the A6 to Horwich for a few quick caches. The first one was by a field with Alpacas in – we could just about make out one in the distance at the top end of the field. We’re assured they are usually much more friendly than this.

A quick find at the old Horwich Station, followed by another easy find at the war memorial in Horwich were then had.

Finally, it was a short drive over to the north of Bolton for a FTF attempt. This cache was set 3.5 months ago and published 1.5 months ago, but for some unbelievable reason, no-one has come to find it. We parked up by a garden center and set off down the path into a lovely wooded area with a stream flowing along to one side.

As we approached GZ, it was clear that the cache was up a very steep and slippery bank. We both scrambled up, with Isaac going the last bit on his own for an easy find of the cache. We were FTF too :-). A really nice spot for a cache and we enjoyed the challenge of the scramble to get the box.

It was now tea-time and we were getting hungry so we set off home. As we approached where we were due to get off the M6, I remembered two caches not far off route that had come out in the week. We did not have these on the GPSr’s so we fired up the GC.com app on the iPhone and got the details that way.

We parked up and set off for two quick finds – the first of which was the better one as it was in a lovely wooded area and a nice sized box too.

Now, it really was time to go home so off we set. 37 finds for the day.